The Fuckest Uppest

Do you want to read it? NO? TOO BAD. Just kidding you don’t have to read it. But if you like QI I’d love it if you would and give me your input! Bear in mind this is for a pitch that I will be giving as if I’m actually talking to execs at BBC America. 

I want to bring QI to America. Now, I know what you’re going to say. People have tried. People have failed, miserably. But we’ll get to that later. 

So, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the show and the concept of panel shows in general, let me give you a brief run-through of the format. Here is the set of the original QI - [image]. The host sits in the middle, the panelists two on either side in front of two large screens which are used mostly for visual aids in the process of the show. Sometimes these are just images related to the topic, sometimes they’re actually integral to the question - like asking what is specifically different about one thing versus another. Either way, these screens are a very important aspect of the set. The rounded shape of the set is also pretty important because it encourages a feeling of sitting around and discussing, which helps the panelists to interact with each other and gives the audience the feeling of really being right there and involved. The host addresses the panelists while asking a question, but when clarifying the information, he’ll often address the camera (thus the audience). 

The permanent members of the cast are a host and a permanent panelist. In addition to those two, three guest panelists are brought in, generally they’re comedians. In the original, the host is the one and only Stephen Fry. The permanent panelist is Alan Davies, who is a well-known stand-up comedian and actor. His role is basically to make the audience feel comfortable in their ignorance and provide a pretty base level of comedic relief. Now I’m going to show you one of my favorite segments of the show because it really shows the spectrum that you get, which is the combination of silliness and the scientific. Alan Davies is usually the one who spearheads moments like this, and they’re really useful in a show that could easily get bogged down in a lot of information. http://youtu.be/6vlVTbBPCtk

As for the content, it covers just about, well… anything. The original QI chooses the episodes’ topics by the alphabet. The first season is referred to as Series A, the second “B” and so on. Each episode in that series will have a title beginning with the relevant letter, and the questions in the episode will at least loosely tie in with the topic. Ideally, the American QI will employ the same system, enabling us to start that very episode with “America”. Other topics to follow could be “Animals”, “Art”, “Agriculture”, “Asia”, and so on. Each of these topics encompasses a wide variety of topics of conversation, of varying difficulty and scope. The creators of QI explain: “Unlike any other quiz show you will have failed to avoid catching, QI’s questions are impossible to answer, but at least the guest panel of top-shelf comedians can laugh at themselves (and the universe in general) while trying.  … At its core, QI enshrines the original view of Lord Reith that the BBC should ‘educate, inform and entertain’, all three of which duties are carried out to the great enjoyment of panel and audience alike.” 

Hearing this quote, you may be wondering “what do you mean impossible? Isn’t that the point of a quiz show?” Well, not this one. You see, on QI the questions are deliberately created in order to trip people up and start a dialogue. The points given are for being entertaining and interesting, even if what the panelist said wasn’t answering the question (or sometimes even relevant). This show is, at its heart, about celebrating knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge. It’s about knowing how to laugh at ourselves for being wrong and then bettering ourselves by finding out why we’re wrong. Unlike the quiz shows we’re familiar with here in America like Jeopardy or Who Wants to be a Millionaire that reward individual achievement (and leave us normal people watching wide eyed and slightly removed) it’s not about showing up to the test and getting a perfect score. It’s more about participating. You won’t leave knowing everything, but you’ll leave a little bit smarter for trying and you’ve have laughed while you did it. It generally goes like this: the host asks a question. The panelists will then come up with entertaining, funny, or flat out interesting answers related to that topic. Once that has died down, the host will then explain the answer in depth and, if it’s a common misconception, they’ll explain what’s wrong with that answer and where it came from. All questions are not set out to kill some commonly held falsehood. Some of them are just interesting or about things you never would’ve thought of.

Now, Stephen Fry once famously commented, “I think we all agree that nobody in this universe understands QI’s scoring system.”. The scoring system is complicated mostly because having a clearcut winner isn’t important. They’re not leaving with a prize or money… a lot of times contestants will intentionally do things to LOSE points just for the sake of forwarding the conversation or getting a laugh. QI employs something they call the klaxon, a bell that sounds after someone gives a boring, obvious and wrong answer. This can be a bit of a difficult concept to understand until you see it action, so I’m going to give you an example.  It’s best on display during the round titled “General Ignorance”, which comes at the end of the show, just before the scores. This round centers less on impossibly hard questions and more on misinformation that most people have. At each klaxon, the panelist is losing ten points (it’s also worth noting that a correct or interesting answer usually only gets you 2 or 3). So here’s a round of General Ignorance. http://youtu.be/wbpikTuoLB0

For this clip, you need to know that a “U” film, is the equivalent of our “G” rating (the fact that I have to explain this is further proof that it’s a cultural divide and not an intellectual divide that is preventing QI from being successful in the UK - upon knowing that, the joke makes perfect sense and you can laugh at it) http://youtu.be/51njbgcr_NU

As you see, this question is really just about giving you some information in an entertaining way. The questions are phrased in a way that encourages discussion and seeks to inform. This next clip is the other type of question you’ll see which is them setting up the panelists to respond with a common misconception so that they can then dispel it. This is similar to the General Ignorance round, but they’re usually asked a bit more subtly than they are in General Ignorance. This strategy is really interesting because it goes about educating in a kind of new way. In this case, they’re replacing the dry, know-it-all narrator of a history channel documentary with someone you can really relate to. And instead of seeing that person just know something you didn’t, you see them fail. You see them say the same answer you were probably thinking, but when they get it wrong, they don’t go home having lost a $30,000 jackpot. Instead, they’re rewarded with a rich and humorous explanation. This avoids scaring away the people you’re trying to educate by showing others being tangibly punished for getting something wrong. http://youtu.be/MSm7YPMQOSo

Now, as a long time and devoted fan of the original QI, I would love to just see QI syndicated in the US. However, this is a problem and has been pretty much since QI first became popular in the UK. The owners and creators of QI want this show to go worldwide, they’ve been trying for years without success in the US. It’s been successfully syndicated in Australia, actually beating out really successful american shows like Big Bang Theory and Criminal Minds. John Lloyd attributes a lot of this to the issue of cost. The issue of cost here is in regards to copyright. As I said earlier with the two large screens, the images that are projected onto them are actually only cleared for use in the UK. So that makes showing QI pretty expensive for reruns and a lot of people just aren’t willing to finance it. Of course, for a version of QI that is written and produced in the US, that issue doesn’t really come into play anymore. It will be made with American copyright law in mind. The main expenses of producing this show are going to be a mutli-camera studio set (that will be broken down between shootings to make room for other shows), the people to run it, the people to do the research, and paying the talent. This means the budget is easy to predict. There are no payouts to winners, there’s no need for fancy sets (except the one) and it shoots on a extremely regulated schedule. 

There has also been a great deal of hesitation amongst the BBC itself - in fact, you, my lovely contemporaries here at BBC America, flat out rejected a show that has been an enormous success for you in the UK (and in other parts of the world), saying that Americans just “won’t get it”. 

Now, I think you’re right. Americans might not get “QI” - the original, the brainy, the brilliant, the BAFTA winning, the BRITISH QI. But let me tell you why. It’s not because it’s too intellectual. It’s not because Americans are dumb. It’s because it’s too British. Now, it’s not too British in that its got that wonderful brand of dry, self-deprecating humor that Britain is so beloved for. It’s too British in that to someone not familiar with British history and culture, a lot of it will go over their heads. ANd it’s not because what you’re actually talking about is too intelligent, it’s because it’s full of inside jokes. When it comes to comedy, people are lazy. And there’s a reason  - no one wants to be the person who isn’t laughing because they don’t understand the joke. Americans are pretty notoriously in a bubble when it comes to entertainment - we dominate a large part of the world market when it comes to television and film and as a result we’re kind of reluctant to really welcome things that seem foreign to us. The rest of the world is used to watching American entertainment, but Americans tend to skip an award winning movie on the basis that it has subtitles. So when it comes to comedy? We’re not going to go out of our way to make a joke make sense. Instead, we’re just going to switch to something else. We seek humor about the things that are familiar to us. Watch any stand up comedian and you’ll see a show mostly comprised of commentary on everyday life. We want to laugh at ourselves and the things we know. Those are the only things we really know how to laugh at.  QI is an extremely mainstream show in the UK, but that’s because viewers know who and what they’re talking about in the context of their lives. Regardless of class, gender, age, or even education, at the end of the day, it’s really just about being British. So it’s not an issue of Americans being unintelligent, it’s an issue of Americans not being anglicized! In the hands of American comedians - the same question is going to be handled very differently. For instance, the comedians on QI often fall into jokes about regions of the UK. For someone familiar with England and the stereotypes associated with different areas (ESSEX CLIP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGciANVxDtM&feature=youtu.be&t=5m3s), this joke is hysterical. Meanwhile, an American viewer is going to wonder where Essex is and why this guy thinks girls there are slutty. 

In a similar situation, with a similar question, an American comedian will likely make a joke referring to an area of the United States that carries with it a certain stereotype. QI isn’t exclusive because of its intellectualism - it makes great efforts to fully explain the topics being covered in fairly simple language. It can, however seem exclusive to Americans because they just flat out aren’t familiar with what the comedians are referencing. This is why i believe that an actual American adaptation would be better suited to BBC America. It’s still British - we would obviously still have John Lloyd listed as creator, I would love to use Jonathan Green as the set designer as well. I would really even love to have Stephen Fry as a guest panelist for the first few episodes. It’s the same format, the same idea that is so very British, the content is just adapted to be relatable to a different audience. Where the british QI may have a question about Nelson’s dying words, the American QI would have a question about whether or not George Washington really wooden teeth (he didn’t). Let me give you an example of a few other British shows that have done this really successfully. 

How many of you watch The Office? How many of you have seen the British version? In one of the very first episodes, there’s an absolutely wonderful joke about Alton Towers. Alton Towers is a theme park in Britain, it’s a Six Flags. Anyone in Britain will know what someone is talking about when they say Alton Towers. To an American, you may as well be saying nonsense. The joke is going to go over their head. It’s not because the joke is too smart, or not funny, it’s because it requires a backstory and a history that someone not familiar with the UK won’t be able to rely upon and call up when they need to. Both of these shows were insanely successful, both critically and in regards to viewership. Who Wants to be a Millionaire is another example of a British show that was adapted to fit American audiences and really flourished. Once again, it was a matter of taking a really excellent concept and making it fit into a different environment. 

I think the American television market needs a show like QI - a show that doesn’t exclude its viewers like the quiz shows we have now. A show that entertains and informs about something other than what a bunch of tanned drunks are doing on the Jersey Shore. A show that has been tested and shown to be successful in ratings and permeating the consciousness of an entire country. The formula is there for a quiz show that’s not just about giving away a million dollars. It’s about giving away something far more valuable: the pursuit of knowledge. You just have to give the audience the opportunity to get it. The format of the show itself will draw people in. You just have to make sure the content is right for the viewers as well. It’s time to stop trying to fit Americans in to the British mold. It’s time to give them their own version, to give them the experience of being sucked into this weird little world of unbelievable truths and remarkable falsehoods. I think we owe the American public the opportunity to fall in love with QI like Britain has for the last 9 years. Finally, an educational show that talks to you, not at you. It’s time for us to produce an American adaptation of QI with American writers, an American host, American researchers, and American panelists and to finally successfully bring this show stateside.